Whatever We Are coming to Cafe Nine

The NYC-based hip-hop/pop quartet Whatever We Are are about 50 percent a Connecticut group, with rapper Trippz and guitarist Ian coming from the state.

WWA mixes downer pop with indie-rap in songs that explore the ways that excess and self-pity can converge. Their single “Cabin Fever” moves around a warped and distended-sounding guitar loop, with trap beats, autotuned vocals and subsonic bass. “Damn, I miss my friends/And I’m way too in my head,” goes one of the lines. It’s woozy, and it all sounds like it’s underwater. That track is in the Juice WRLD mode. Same with “In the Night,” about the numbness and attendant depression of partying. Elsewhere, like on “Freak,” the beats are less narcotized and more torqued and twitchy.

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Whatever We Are plays Cafe Nine, 250 State St., New Haven, on Jan. 21 at 8 p.m. Free with RSVP ($5 at the door). 203-789-8281 or cafenine.com